When I purchased my used, 2000 Toyota Camry with 60K miles last fall, it had already been inspected and serviced. In the last six months, I’ve noticed that the brakes start squeaking when I press the brakes at slow speeds. I was told that my brakes are fine. Timing belt issue maybe?
The car also burns gas like no other which is surprising given that it’s a Toyota. I go through a full tank of gas in a week and I’m only driving like 10-12 miles a day.
Re the gas consumption, you should get a firm number. Fill the tank, note the mileage on the odometer, drive until it is at least half empty. Fill it again, note number of gallons and odo reading.
Subtract the two odo readings, divide by the gallons to get miles per gallon.
This is a 16 or 17 year old car, there are many things that could be wearing out. Most rubber items like the tires are only good for 10 years.
What type of driving do you do? city, country, highway? What type of driver are you? steady, consistent, driving at constant speeds, gentle stops, gradual accelerations? or the opposite?
Squealing brakes have nothing to do with the timing belt. I’d have the brakes checked by a good mechanic. This is a safety issue.
How is the engine running? any warning lights? Any strange sounds? When did you notice the high gas consumption? Had anything happened just prior to that?
With driving 10-15 miles per day, you will be hard-pressed to reach the EPA city fuel economy rating. The engine will be spending a lot of time below optimum operating temperature, which is bad for fuel economy. It’s also bad for oil life, so be sure to have it changed following the severe service interval in the owners manual.
The noisy brakes might be caused by someone installing cheap brake components instead of those that meets or exceeds the manufacturer’s specifications.
The poor fuel mileage can be caused by a couple of things.
If the thermostat is stuck open, the engine doesn’t reach operating temperature. This causes the computer to add more fuel to the engine.
If the coolant temp sensor for the computer is faulty, where it’s telling the computer that the coolant never reached operating temperature when it actually does. This causes the computer to add more fuel to the engine.
Or in other words, if the computer thinks that the engine is always cold, the engine will use more fuel.
Tester
I have about the same commute, city driving. It depends which engine you have. The 6 cyl 3.0 is 17 city driving est. On my trailblazer It gets 15 mpg summer diving. less in the winter. If you have the 6 cyl. as I do not know your tank capacity I guess you are around 15 mpg. About right. Might be time for air and fuel filters and plugs. Check the manual.
Brake inspection time step 1.
I’d also like to know what engine this Camry has
I know for a fact that the Camry 3.0 V6 gets relatively poor fuel economy, even when everything is working perfectly. Just the way it is. Around 21-22mpg combined. I have a 2005 3.0 V6 Camry. And if the OP’s Camry also has a V6, there’s no way it’s getting better fuel economy, because it’s an older body style with an older design automatic transmission, with less gear ratios
But in all likelihood, OP has a 4-banger, because that’s the more common engine.
Well let’s see.
The Camry has a 18.5 gallon fuel tank. And if you only drive let’s say 90 miles a week, that means the vehicle is getting about 5 miles/gallon.
And where I come from, that’s called lousy fuel mileage for a Camry.
Tester
Are your tires properly inflated? If not, that could be part of the fuel economy issue (but not all of it).
Fill your gas tank until the nozzle shuts off. Write down the mileage reading from the odometer. Drive for a week. Fill the tank until the nozzle shuts off. Write down how many gallons you pumped. Write down the mileage reading from the odometer. Tell us those numbers.
Your fuel economy doesn’t make sense. Your car would be running horribly and leaving clouds of black smoke behind you if you were really getting 4 miles per gallon.
I just noticed the title of the discussion includes the words “gas leak”
Perhaps OP is suspecting there may be a fuel leak, because he believes his fuel economy is very poor
Agreed . . . until the fuel economy is determined the way @asemaster describes, it’s all just speculation
For the record, most of the people I know have 0% idea what kind of fuel economy their cars get. All they know how much it costs to fill up 